As injuries mount, Senators surge

When the Ottawa Senators took the ice exactly a week ago in New Jersey against the Devils, the numbers staring them in the face were staggering.

Missing from the lineup, based on last season’s statistics, were the 88 goals (or 35 per cent of the team’s total output), 139 assists and 222 points posted by Erik Karlsson, Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek — and they were just the top three players populating the overcrowded sick bay.

Instead, the Senators were breaking in three players who’d played a grand total of three NHL games and starting their No. 2 goaltender, Ben Bishop. Oh, and they’d also dropped two straight games heading in.

If you’d told them they’d lose the outlandish, Vezina Trophy-caliber .952 save percentage posted by No. 1 goalie Craig Anderson so far this season three nights later, they might have laughed. Or cried.

So, if the Senators wind up shocking the hockey world by qualifying for the playoffs, that New Jersey game might well be looked upon as the turning point.

Only two nights earlier, they’d been shut out by Ben Scrivens and the Toronto Maple Leafs and appeared headed for a similar fate, trailing 1-0 late in the game. Then Daniel Alfredsson scored to tie and new linemate Jakob Silfverberg clinched the shootout win.

The Senators haven’t looked back.

On Saturday night, they beat Scrivens and the Leafs 3-2 at Scotiabank Place to run their record to 4-1 when playing without a single one of their three best skaters in the lineup.

As has been the case so many times already this season, another unlikely hero emerged. This time, it was winger Colin Greening, who’d been a healthy scratch against the Leafs a week before. He scored the winning goal with 23 seconds remaining, adding to the two assists he’d already posted earlier in the game.

In a season that defies explanation, Greening gave his best shot at describing why the more key players the Senators lose, the more they seem to win. A big factor, he agreed, was the fact so many of his current teammates — close to 10 — battled together through a lengthy AHL playoff campaign in 2011 that ended with a Calder Cup.

“You know the guys you went though those playoff series, those hard series, the bus rides, and to have that familiarity, it’s important, because you feel comfortable and you know what kind of players they are as well,” Greening said.

Whereas the Senators were getting impressive goaltending right from the get-go, they also had plenty of offensive weapons to break a game open if necessary. Now, it’s a matter of limiting opposing teams’ second chances while generating their own scrappy goals.

The Leafs tilt was case-in-point. While Ottawa gave up a good number of shots (28), it was quick to lock down the area in front of Bishop before Toronto could do much damage on rebounds.

At the other end, Greening’s winner was a rebound batted out of mid-air, Erik Condra’s second period marker came as he was shoved into Scrivens by Toronto defenceman Korbinian Holzer and Mika Zibanejad opened the scoring on a nifty tip-in while driving the net.

David Dziurzynski, one of the three rookies who made his debut in the aforementioned New Jersey game, chalked the success up keeping things simple and chemistry as well.

“We just keep gelling and grinding out wins, and I think (you gain) confidence knowing all the guys — that helps a lot,” he said. “We were a pretty close group of guys when we won (the Calder Cup) and we’re just familiar with a lot of faces.”

The Bingo camaraderie wasn’t lost on captain Daniel Alfredsson, who joked that he felt like a stranger in his own locker room some days.

“But it’s fun, too,” he said. “They’re a vibrant group … they’ve done a great job I think, coming in, working hard and doing what’s expected of them.”

The fact the newer faces were already familiar with half the roster helped to remove the “star-struck” jitters that often accompany first-time callups, he added.

And winning right off the bat helps, too. The results of this past week are promising, as are the Senators’ prospects going forward.

As a result of their four-game winning streak, they currently sit sixth in the Eastern Conference, with a chance to leapfrog a couple of teams with a win over the Montreal Canadiens Monday night.

When they hit their 20th game last season, as they will against the Habs, they were sitting eighth in the East, where six of the eight teams in playoff positions managed to hold on and qualify.

And with the same number of games remaining as last year, seven of eight teams had been set, with only the Leafs falling off the grid.

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